A SAR time series analysis toolbox for extracting fire affected areas in wetlands

During the period 1999-2000 frequent fires occurred in the delta of Parana´ River, Buenos Aires, Argentina. A set of 13 ERS 2 images were collected within the frame of the ESA AO3 232 project. One of the basic concerns when trying to make use of these data for time series analysis is the need of tools for calibration of the SAR data, image coregistration, reduction of the radiometric uncertainty, and creation of the specific change detection algorithm. This paper presents the efforts made toward setting a processing procedure for these tasks. It combines ESA SARtoolbox with software developed within the ENVI-IDL environment that includes image coregistration, a temporal filter for increasing the number of looks but avoiding a loss in spatial resolution, and a change detection algorithm that maps the observed increase-decrease in the SAR response due to fires in this area.